Oct 24, 2024 • 13 min read
08.10.2024 - 11:19 / lonelyplanet.com
Oct 7, 2024 • 11 min read
Modern Egyptian cuisine includes dishes that date back thousands of years to the time of the pharaohs, such as the green soup molokhiyya and hamam mahshi (stuffed pigeon). Bread was a daily staple in the Pharaonic era and remains so today. The Egyptian Arabic word for bread, aish, means “to live” and the local, round flatbread aish baladi is an essential accompaniment or container for a variety of meals.
Egyptian food also reflects the country’s geographical location – North African, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern – as well as the influences of various civilizations, including Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman and French. For example, macarona béchamel is an adaptation of the Greek pastitsio, a baked pasta dish with ground meat and béchamel sauce. The popular street food shawarma, meat cooked on a vertical spit, has its origins in the Ottoman Empire and subsequently the Levant.
Despite these influences, Egyptians have been able to hold on to their own culinary traditions and what they consider akl beety (homemade food). One such tradition is cooking with samna baladi, a clear golden liquid similar to ghee made by melting butter until the milk solids separate.
Rural communities along the Nile Valley and Delta prefer cooking with it instead of vegetable oils due to its distinct and rich flavor. It is used in everything from the ta’leya, a sautéed mixture of garlic and ground coriander added to molokhiyya, to the buttery layers in the Egyptian flaky pastry feteer.
In addition to taste, practical considerations also come into play. National dishes, such as fuul and ta’amiyya made from fava beans, as well as kushari – a mix of rice, lentils, pasta, and tomato sauce – serve as cheap and satisfying sustenance for the masses.
Where there is fuul, there is ta’amiyya. Fuul medames (mashed fava beans) and ta’amiyya (deep-fried patties made out of fava beans) are considered breakfast foods but can be consumed at any time of day. Fuul is traditionally stewed and served out of a large metal jug called a qedra.
Ta’amiyya is the Egyptian version of falafel, which is made from chickpeas. The secret to tasty fuul and ta’amiyya sandwiches is adding the right stuff, such as olive oil, cumin, garlic, parsley and lemon juice for fuul, and tahini and chopped salad for ta’amiyya. The Alexandrian version of fuul usually adds chopped peppers, onions and tomatoes. For a spicy kick, ask for chili pepper.
Where to try it: Mahrous in Garden City has been around for around 70 years, according to the grandson of its founder, who personally serves up its specialties and rattles off the menu verbally. For a more modern take, try ta’amiyya tossed with harissa raisin hot sauce at Zööba.
Molokhiyya, a bright green soup made
Oct 24, 2024 • 13 min read
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“As far back as I can remember, I knew I was different,” says Alexander Smalls. Growing up in a Gullah Geechee household in Spartanburg, North Carolina, the chef says he recognized the implication of those differences—in appearance, history, and cuisine. “I discovered early that my friends did not eat any of the foods that I ate. My foods were more akin to West Africa, you know, and very much pronounced in that way,” he says. It wan't until he moved to New York as an adult, that he assimilated the value of that diasporic connective tissue. “Food was a big part of cultural expression and identity of the African diaspora,” he says.
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A single panda can eat more than 70 pounds of bamboo a day, so before Mao Sun and Xing Er, two Chinese-born bears, moved to the Copenhagen Zoo in the spring of 2019, Danish zookeepers had to find a reliable source of the treelike grass. One supplier was the farmer Søren Ladefoged, whose crop has recently benefited another local attraction: the fine-dining destination Noma. The chef Mette Søberg, 34, who heads Noma’s test kitchen, was inspired to add tender young shoots to the menu after the restaurant’s 10-week pop-up at the Ace Hotel in Kyoto last year, where thinly sliced bamboo was served in squid broth. “In Japan, and in Kyoto specifically, they’re so excited about ingredients that are in season for a short time,” she says. From late March through May, “everyone knows, ‘Ah, it’s bamboo season!’” Back in Denmark, she started grilling the shoots over pine boughs for a slightly smoky tinge and serving them with a butter and sencha tea dipping sauce. “We want to make it really simple so people can actually taste the bamboo,” says Søberg, who describes the plant’s flavor as “nutty, vegetal and a little bit sweet.” She adds that many Noma diners are surprised to encounter bamboo in Denmark, where it’s cultivated but not typically consumed. Outside of Asian restaurants, the same is true in the United States, where, at Brooklyn’s Cafe Mado, the chef Nico Russell, 36, has been pickling the shoots and serving them with razor clams in a garlicky sauce. He gets his supply of the yellow groove variety from the New Jersey-based forager Tama Matsuoka Wong, 66, who described this year’s demand as “a frenzy.” Wong, who specializes in harvesting edible invasive plants, points out that yellow groove multiplies rapidly through horizontal roots and can quickly overtake a plot of land. She works with property owners to contain the plant, while getting it into the hands of chefs like Mads Refslund, 47, of the wood fire-centered restaurant Ilis, also in Brooklyn, who has ordered over 750 pounds from Wong so far this year. This past summer, he served vertically cut salt-cured shoots with buckwheat oil-brushed uni and caviar pooled in the divots of the stems. He also preserved the majority of his supply, he says, so that — despite bamboo’s short season — he can offer it for months to come. —